Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VIII Part 5

The facade of the present church is amazing in its richness, undoubtedly possesses some grand and much lovely detail, and is as undoubtedly suggestive, with its white marble ornaments upon a pink marble ground, of a huge, sugared cake. It is impossible to look at this restored whiteness with the sun upon it; the dazzled eyes close involuntarily and one sees in retrospect the great, gray church front at Rheims, or the solemn facade of Notre Dame de Paris. It is like remembering an organ burst of Handel after hearing the florid roulades of the ma.s.s within the cathedral.

The interior is rich in color and fine in effect, but the northerner is painfully imprest by the black and white horizontal stripes which, running from vaulting to pavement, seem to blur and confuse the vision, and the closely set bars of the piers are positively irritating. In the hexagonal lantern, however, they are less offensive than elsewhere, because the fan-like radiation of the bars above the great gilded statues breaks up the horizontal effect. The decoration of the stone-work is not happy; the use of cold red and cold blue with gilt bosses in relief does much to vulgarize, and there is constant sally in small ma.s.ses which belittles the general effect. It is evident that the Sienese tendency to floridity is answerable for much of this, and that having added some piece of big and bad decoration, the cornice of papal head, for instance, they felt forced to do away with it or continue it throughout.

But this fault and many others are forgotten when we examine the detail with which later men have filled the church. Other Italian cathedrals possess art-objects of a higher order; perhaps no other one is so rich in these treasures. The great masters are disappointing here. Raphael, as the co-laborer of Pinturicchio, is dainty, rather than great, and Michelangelo pa.s.ses unnoticed in the huge and coldly elaborate altar-front of the Piccolomini. But Marrina, with his doors of the library; Barili, with his marvelous casing of the choir-stalls; Beccafumi, with his bronze and neillo--these are the artists whom one wonders at; these wood-carvers and bronze-founders, creators of the microcosmic detail of the Renaissance which had at last burst triumphantly into Siena.

This treasure is c.u.mulative, as we walk eastward from the main door, where the pillars are a maze of scroll-work in deepest cutting, and by the time we reach the choir the head fairly swims with the play of light and color. We wander from point to point, we finger and caress the l.u.s.trous stalls of Barili, and turn with a kind of confusion of vision from panel to panel; above our heads the tabernacle of Vecchietta, the lamp bearing angels of Beccafumi make spots of bituminous color, with glittering high-lights, strangely emphasizing their modeling; from these youths, who might be pages to some Roman prefect, the eye travels upward still further, along the golden convolutions of the heavily stuccoed pilasters to the huge, gilded cherubs' heads that frame the eastern rose....

It is incredible that these frescoes are four hundred years old. Surely Pinturicchio came down from his scaffolding but yesterday. This is how the hardly dried plaster must have looked to pope and cardinal and princes when the boards were removed, and when the very figures on these walls--smart youths in tights and slashes, bright-robed scholars, ecclesiastics caped in ermine, ladies with long braids bound in nets of silk--crowded to see themselves embalmed in tempera for curious after-centuries to gaze upon.

THE a.s.sISSI OF ST. FRANCIS[29]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

On the summit of an abrupt height, over a double row of arcades, appears the monastery; at its base a torrent plows the soil, winding off in the distance between banks of boulders; beyond is the old town prolonging itself on the ridge of the mountain. We ascend slowly under the burning sun, and suddenly, at the end of a court surrounded by slender columns, enter within the obscurity of the cathedral. It is unequalled; before having seen it one has no idea of the art and the genius of the Middle Ages. Append to it Dante and the "Fioretti" of St. Francis, and it becomes the masterpiece of mystic Christianity.

There are three churches, one above the other, all of them arranged around the tomb of St. Francis. Over this venerated body, which the people regard as ever living and absorbed in prayer at the bottom of an inaccessible cave, the edifice has arisen and gloriously flowered like an architectural shrine. The lowest is a crypt, dark as a sepulcher, into which the visitors descend with torches; pilgrims keep close to the dripping walls and grope along in order to reach the grating.

Here is the tomb, in a pale, dim light, similar to that of limbo. A few bra.s.s lamps, almost without lights, burn here eternally like stars lost in mournful obscurity. The ascending smoke clings to the arches, and the heavy odor of the tapers mingles with that of the cave. The guide trims his torch; and the sudden flash in this horrible darkness, above the bones of a corpse, is like one of Dante's visions. Here is the mystic grave of a saint who, in the midst of corruption and worms, beholds his slimy dungeon of earth filled with the supernatural radiance of the Savior.

But that which can not be represented by words is the middle church, a long, low spiracle supported by small, round arches curving in the half-shadow, and whose voluntary depression makes one instinctively bend his knees. A coating of somber blue and of reddish bands starred with gold, a marvelous embroidery of ornaments, wreaths, delicate scroll-work, leaves, and painted figures, covers the arches and ceilings with its harmonious mult.i.tude; the eye is overwhelmed by it; a population of forms and tints lives on its vaults; I would not exchange this cavern for all the churches of Rome!

On the summit, the upper church shoots up as brilliant, as aerial, as triumphant, as this is low and grave. Really, if one were to give way to conjecture, he might suppose that in these three sanctuaries the architect meant to represent the three worlds; below, the gloom of death and the horrors of the infernal tomb; in the middle, the impa.s.sioned anxiety of the beseeching Christian who strives and hopes in this world of trial; aloft, the bliss and dazzling glory of Paradise.

RAVENNA[30]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

With exceptions, all the monuments of Ravenna belong to the days of transition from Roman to Medieval times, and the greater part of them come within the fifth and sixth centuries. It was then that Ravenna became, for a season, the head of Italy and of the Western world. The sea had made Ravenna a great haven: the falling back of the sea made her the ruling city of the earth. Augustus had called into being the port of Caesarea as the Peiraieus of the Old Thessalian or Umbrian Ravenna.

Haven and city grew and became one; but the faithless element again fell back; the haven of Augustus became dry land covered by orchards, and Cla.s.sis arose as the third station, leaving Ravenna itself an inland city.

Again has the sea fallen back; Caesarea has utterly perished; Cla.s.sis survives only in one venerable church; the famous pine forest has grown up between the third haven and the now distant Hadriatic. Out of all this grew the momentary greatness of Ravenna. The city, girded with the three fold zone of marshes, causeways, and strong walls, became the impregnable shelter of the later Emperors; and the earliest Teutonic Kings naturally fixt their royal seat in the city of their Imperial predecessors. When this immediate need had pa.s.sed away, the city naturally fell into insignificance, and it plays hardly any part in the history of Medieval Italy. Hence it is that the city is crowded with the monuments of an age which has left hardly any monuments elsewhere.

In Britain, indeed, if Dr. Merivale be right in the date which he gives to the great Northern wall, we have a wonderful relic of those times; but it is the work, not of the architect, but of the military engineers.

In other parts of Europe also works of this date are found here and there; but nowhere save at Ravenna is there a whole city, so to speak, made up of them. Nowhere but at Ravenna can we find, thickly scattered around us, the churches, the tombs, perhaps the palaces, of the last Roman and the first Teutonic rulers of Italy. In the Old and in the New Rome, and in Milan also, works of the same date exist; but either they do not form the chief objects of the city, or they have lost their character and position through later changes. If Ravenna boasts of the tombs of Honorius and Theodoric, Milan boasts also, truly or falsely, of the tombs of Stilicho and Athaulf. But at Milan we have to seek for the so-called tomb of Athaulf in a side-chapel of a church which has lost all ancient character, and the so-called tomb of Stilicho, tho placed in the most venerable church of the city, stands in a strange position as the support of a pulpit.

At Ravenna, on the other hand, the mighty mausoleum of Theodoric, and the chapel which contains the tombs of Galla Placidia, her brother, and her second husband, are among the best known and best preserved monuments of the city. Ravenna, in the days of its Exarchs, could never have dared to set up its own St. Vital as a rival to Imperial St.

Sophia. But at St. Sophia, changed into the temple of another faith, the most characteristic ornaments have been hidden or torn away, while at St. Vital Hebrew patriarchs and Christian saints, and the Imperial forms of Justinian and his strangely-chosen Empress, still look down, as they did thirteen hundred years back, upon the altars of Christian worship.

Ravenna, in short, seems, as it were, to have been preserved all but untouched to keep up the memory of the days which were alike Roman, Christian, and Imperial.

BENEDICTINE SUBIACO[31]

BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

One of the excellent mountain roads constructed by Pius IX. leads through a wild district from Olevano to Subiaco. A few miles before reaching Subiaco we skirt a lake, probably one of the Simbrivii Lacus which Nero is believed to have made by damming up the Anio. Here he fished for trout with a golden net, and here he built the mountain villa which he called Sublaqueum--a name which still exists in Subiaco.

Four centuries after the valley had witnessed the orgies of Nero, a young patrician of the family of the Anicii-Benedictus, or "the blessed one," being only fourteen at the time, fled from the seductions of the capital to the rocks of Mentorella, but, being followed thither, sought a more complete solitude in a cave above the falls of the Anio. Here he lived unknown to any except the hermit Roma.n.u.s, who daily let down food to him, half of his own loaf, by a cord from the top of the cliff. At length the hiding-place was revealed to the village priest in a vision, and pilgrims flocked from all quarters to the valley. Through the disciples who gathered around Benedict, this desolate ravine became the cradle of monastic life in the West, and twelve monasteries rose amid its peaks under the Benedictine rule....

Nothing can exceed the solemn grandeur of the situation of the convent dedicated to St. Scholastica, the sainted sister of St. Benedict, which was founded in the fifth century, and which, till quite lately, included as many as sixteen towns and villages among its possessions. The scenery becomes more romantic and savage at every step as we ascend the winding path after leaving St. Scholastica, till a small gate admits us to the famous immemorial Ilex Grove of St. Benedict, which is said to date from the fifth century, and which has never been profaned by ax or hatchet.

Beyond it the path narrows, and a steep winding stair, just wide enough to admit one person at a time, leads to the platform before the second convent, which up to that moment is entirely concealed. Its name, Sacro Speco, commemorates the holy cave of St. Benedict.

At the portal, the thrilling interest of the place is suggested by the inscription--"Here is the patriarchal cradle of the monks of the West Order of St. Benedict." The entrance corridor, built on arches over the abyss, has frescoes of four sainted popes, and ends in an ante-chamber with beautiful Umbrian frescoes, and a painted statue of St. Benedict.

Here we enter the all-glorious church of 1116, completely covered with ancient frescoes. A number of smaller chapels, hewn out of the rock, are dedicated to the sainted followers of the founder. Some of the paintings are by the rare Umbrian master Concioli. A staircase in front of the high altar leads to the lower church. At the foot of the first flight of steps, above the charter of 1213, setting forth all its privileges, is the frescoed figure of Innocent III., who first raised Subiaco into an abbacy; in the same fresco is represented Abbot John of Tagliacozzo, under whom (1217-1277) many of the paintings were executed.

On the second landing, the figure of Benedict faces us on a window with his finger on his lips, imposing silence. On the left is the coro, on the right the cave where Benedict is said to have pa.s.sed three years in darkness. A statue by Raggi commemorates his presence here; a basket is a memorial of that lowered with his food by St. Roma.n.u.s; an ancient bell is shown as that which rang to announce its approach. As we descend the Scala Santa trodden by the feet of Benedict, and ascended by the monks upon their knees, the solemn beauty of the place increases at every step. On the right is a powerful fresco of Death mowing down the young and sparing the old; on the left, the Preacher shows the young and thoughtless the three states to which the body is reduced after death.

Lastly, we reach the Holy of Holies, the second cave, in which Benedict laid down the rule of his order, making its basis the twelve degrees of humility. Here also an inscription enumerates the wonderful series of saints, who, issuing from Subiaco, founded the Benedictine Order throughout the world.

ETRUSCAN VOLTERRA[32]

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

For several miles before reaching Volterra, our attention was fixt by the extraordinary aspect of the country through which we were pa.s.sing.

The road gradually ascended, and we found ourselves among deep ravines and steep, high, broken banks, princ.i.p.ally of clay, barren, and in most places wholly bare of herbage, a scene of complete desolation, were it not for a cottage here and there perched upon the heights, a few sheep attended by a boy and a dog grazing on the brink of one of the precipices, or a solitary patch of bright green wheat in some spot where the rains had not yet carried away the vegetable mold.

In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, here and there interspersed with fertile spots, rises the mountain on which Volterra is situated, where the inhabitants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere, almost perpetually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies; while below, on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sight winds its way to the sea, they die of fevers. One of the ravines of which I have spoken--the "balza," they call it at Volterra--has plowed a deep chasm on the north side of this mountain, and is every year rapidly approaching the city on its summit. I stood on its edge and looked down a bank of soft, red earth five hundred feet in height. A few rods in front of me I saw where a road had crossed the spot in which the gulf now yawned; the tracks of the last year's carriages were seen reaching to the edge on both sides. The ruins of a convent were close at hand, the inmates of which, two or three years since, had been removed by the Government to the town for safety....

The antiquities of Volterra consist of an Etruscan burial-ground, in which the tombs still remain, pieces of the old and incredibly ma.s.sive Etruscan wall, including a far larger circuit than the present city, two Etruscan gates of immemorial antiquity, older, doubtless, than any thing at Rome, built of enormous stones, one of them serving even yet as an entrance to the town, and a mult.i.tude of cinerary vessels, mostly of alabaster, sculptured with numerous figures in "alto relievo." These figures are sometimes allegorical representations, and sometimes embody the fables of the Greek mythology. Among them are many in the most perfect style of Grecian art, the subjects of which are taken from the poems of Homer; groups representing the besiegers of Troy and its defenders, or Ulysses with his companions and his ships. I gazed with exceeding delight on these works of forgotten artists, who had the verses of Homer by heart--works just drawn from the tombs where they had been buried for thousands of years, and looking as if fresh from the chisel.

THE PAESTUM OF THE GREEKS[33]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

Few buildings are more familiar than the temples of Paestum; yet the moment when the traveler first comes in sight of works of untouched h.e.l.lenic skill is one which is simply overwhelming. Suddenly, by the side of a dreary road, in a spot backed indeed by n.o.ble mountains, but having no charm of its own, we come on these works, unrivaled on our side of the Hadriatic and the Messenian strait, standing in all their solitary grandeur, shattered indeed, but far more perfect than the ma.s.s of ruined buildings of later days. The feeling of being brought near to h.e.l.lenic days and h.e.l.lenic men, of standing face to face with the fathers of the world's civilization, is one which can never pa.s.s away.

Descriptions, pictures, models, all fail; they give us the outward form; they can not give us the true life.

The thought comes upon us that we have pa.s.sed away from that Roman world out of which our own world has sprung into that earlier and fresher and brighter world by which Rome and ourselves have been so deeply influenced, but out of which neither the Roman nor the modern world can be said to spring. There is the true Doric in its earliest form, in all its unmixed and simple majesty. The ground is strewed with sh.e.l.ls and covered with acanthus-leaves; but no sh.e.l.l had suggested the Ionic volute, no acanthus-leaf had suggested the Corinthian foliage. The vast columns, with the sudden tapering, the overhanging capitals, the stern, square abacus, all betoken the infancy of art. But it is an infancy like that of their own Herakles; the strength which clutched the serpent in his cradle is there in every stone. Later improvements, the improvements of Attic skill, may have added grace; the perfection of art may be found in the city which the vote of the divine a.s.sembly decreed to Athene; but for the sense of power, of simplicity without rudeness, the city of Poseidon holds her own. Unlike in every detail, there is in these wonderful works of early Greek art a spirit akin to some of the great churches of Romanesque date, simple, ma.s.sive, unadorned, like the Poseidonian Doric.

And they show, too, how far the ancient architects were from any slavish bondage to those minute rules which moderns have invented for them. In each of the three temples of Paestum differences both of detail and of arrangement may be marked, differences partly of age, but also partly of taste. And some other thoughts are brought forcibly upon the mind. Here indeed we feel that the wonders of h.e.l.lenic architecture are things to kindle our admiration, even our reverence; but that, as the expression of a state of things which has wholly pa.s.sed away, nothing can be less fit for reproduction in modern times.